


don't you hear me calling you?

by tartymoriarty



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Maycury Week, alternative universes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 14:49:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20566148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tartymoriarty/pseuds/tartymoriarty
Summary: In all the worlds in all the universes that ever existed or will exist, there is a Brian, and there is a Freddie.





	don't you hear me calling you?

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution for the final day of Maycury Week - it's been super fun, thanks so much to [freddie-mercurial](https://freddie-mercurial.tumblr.com/) for organising it!
> 
> Prompt was Freddie and Brian meeting for the first time so I took that and ran with it.

In all the worlds in all the universes that ever existed or will exist, there is a Brian, and there is a Freddie.

-

They meet on a plane to Japan, at a supermarket checkout, in the little indie coffee shop on the corner of the street where Freddie has just moved in. They meet on a dating app, at a Christmas market, outside a counsellor’s office. They meet in nursery, aged 3, and Brian is already tall for his age so he puts his arm round Freddie when Freddie gets tearful and tells him he will look after him. They meet in prison, sharing a cell in a world where Brian had a driving accident with terrible consequences and Freddie got away with three years of shoplifting in fancy boutiques along Kings Road, until he didn’t.

-

In one universe, Brian is human and Freddie is fae, and they meet in a quiet woodland where no human usually treads. Freddie is shocked to meet Brian and all the stories he’s ever heard about humans tell him he should hide, quickly, get away, now, but he can’t sense any malice in the lanky creature staring at him with shock to match his own. Before long, Freddie is fascinated by Brian and his strange human world.

Brian finds it hard to wrap his logical mind around Freddie’s existence, but then, that can be an issue in the worlds where both of them are human, too.

-

In another world, Brian studies the science of food technology and becomes interested in all things culinary. He meets Freddie at the evening cookery class he teaches and soon decides he has never had a worse pupil.

But Freddie’s bashful grin makes up for the mess and the chaos and once, memorably, the explosion. Freddie is truly useless in the kitchen and he only lasts a term, but they keep in touch afterwards.

-

Freddie, it turns out, makes an excellent pirate. He’s smart and sharp and ruthless when he needs to be, and he has a way of always besting those who try to test him.

Except for this one officer in the British Navy who is suspiciously good at evading Freddie’s attempts to have him killed, until Freddie stops trying to have him killed and decides he quite likes having a nemesis.

They chase each other across the seas, and if there’s the odd bottle of rum raised between them through temporary truces on silent, deserted islands in the middle of the glittering Caribbean sea, who’s to say it ever happened if no-one ever saw?

-

Brian is a prince, a politician, a philanthropist.

Freddie is an acrobat, an artist, an actor.

-

There’s a world where Freddie is a man who’ll dedicate his album to his love of cats, but that’s not this world. In this world, Freddie is a cat, tiny and black with a little black nose, and it might just be the world that suits him best.

He doesn’t have a glamorous beginning, brought into a rescue centre as a young stray, but he’s adopted within a few weeks by a couple of friends who’ve already got one cat and have decided he must be lonely because he mopes a lot. So Freddie finds himself deposited in a cat carrier and taken to his new home by his two new humans, two young men named Roger and John who fall in love with him as quickly and surely as they do in every universe.

When Freddie meets his new cat brother he almost skitters right back into the cat carrier in fright, because the hazel-eyed tabby glaring at him from a comfortable-looking cushion does _not_ look friendly.

“Brian, you’ve scared him,” tuts John. He picks Freddie up and Freddie mews a bit, squirming in his grip. He considers the pros and cons of digging his claws in and making an escape, but decides against it; he can spot cat treats on the counter beyond Brian’s head.

“Come on Brian, this is your new brother, Freddie!” Roger coos. “John, put him down a bit closer – ”

John does and Freddie freezes, cowering a little when Brian jumps up and prowls over to have a closer look. He’s a lot bigger than Freddie, fluffy where Freddie is sleek.

Freddie gives an admittedly pathetic meow. Brian looks him up and down, then evidently decides he isn’t worth the hassle and returns to his cushion. Roger and John sigh in the background.

(His aloofness doesn’t last long. Within a month they sleep together on the comfortable-looking cushion, curled so close it’s difficult to tell where one cat begins and the other ends.)

-

The cruellest universe isn’t the one where their love turns too sour to be remedied, a love affair turned break-up too vicious and toxic to ever find forgiveness, or the one where they meet towards the end of their lives, with joints too old and tired to embrace all that they could be, once upon a time.

It’s the one where they only pass by each other ever so briefly, momentary companions in side-by-side vehicles as they wait for the traffic lights to change. Brian glances idly out of his window and sees the silhouette of the man in the next car along. A shock of black hair, aviators perched on his nose, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of a song Brian can’t hear. The lights turn green. Freddie turns left and Brian turns right and they never see each other again.

-

In one world, they meet in London, England, at the dawn of the 1970s. Brian is a guitarist with a poet’s soul and Freddie has a voice that will bring stadiums and countries and continents to their feet.

Brian already has a band but Freddie doesn’t and he’s restless, adrift, unmoored and frustrated with his angel’s voice but no-one to listen, his planet-sized talent that doesn’t have an audience. He should be a shooting star leaping through the sky like a tiger, defying the laws of gravity, but as it is he’s just a poor boy and nobody loves him. Still, he’s a champion, and he’ll keep on fighting ‘til the end.

It’s not a flash of instant clarity and the clash of destiny; they don’t meet and become one in the first breath they take in each other’s company. Freddie sees a young man with magic hands and a smile too kind for the hecklers. Brian sees a human being made up of contrasts: loud and shy, nervous and confident, brave and afraid.

It might not be instant, but something happens when Freddie enters Brian’s orbit. He circles for a while and then he is pulled in, just as Brian reaches for him, gives him the tether he needs and moors him to his starlight.

Together they shine.


End file.
